New Mexico's U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall today asked the National Park Service to study the potential for including the 89,000 acre Valles Caldera National Preserve near Los Alamos in the National Park System.

A National Park Service preserve is managed similarly to a national park, but allows for hunting.

The senators said the Congressional mandate establishing the preserve as public land managed by an independent Board of Trustees will expire in 2020, unless it is extended. Future management of the preserve should be discussed now, the senators said in a media release.

The Valles Caldera Trust that currently manages the preserve has faced opposition from people who believe it has been managed primarily for cows and not other uses at a cost greater than other public lands. Congress approved the purchase of the preserve in 2000, to be run by the trust as an "experiment in land management." The Trust's mandates included protecting natural resources, supporting public access and use, and managing the preserve as a "working ranch." The Trust also was to strive to make the preserve financially self-sufficient by 2015.